There are, of course, many instances where it is desirable to continuously sense the temperature of a subject. One example is in the care of newborns where the infant requires a stable temperature for survival and, therefore, it is necessary to keep a continual monitor of the temperature of the infant. As such, clinicians are required to frequently measure the temperature of the infant, ether independently or as a part of a thermal regulation device to ensure that a consistent body temperature is maintained.
At the present, however, the temperature readings are only periodically taken, as no continuous recording device exists for measuring the temperature of the infant during a thermal challenge. As a result, discharge of the infant from the hospital is often delayed for days while the infant establishes auto-regulation of its temperature.
One means of continually monitoring the temperature of an infant is to affix one or more temperature sensors, such as thermistors, to the skin of the infant and then continually measure the temperature signals from the sensors. There is, however a difficulty with such use of temperature sensors affixed to the infant's skin since the sensors can cause sores on the infant and there is always a problem with the troublesome wires that connect the sensor to the monitoring device which can become disconnected or simply create an impediment to the access to the infant by attending personnel. In addition, with the use of electrically activated sensors, there is a problem with interference by other equipment in the vicinity of the temperature sensors and which can cause inaccuracy or total loss of signal from the temperature sensors.
There have been certain coverings that have been published that have some means of measuring the temperature and, as an example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,176 of Kishimoto et al, there a blanket that includes a plurality of temperature sensors affixed to the covering, however, those sensors are electrically activated and are subject to electrical interference from other equipment used in the care of an infant or other patient.
There is a technology that is present available but not yet applied or used in a temperature sensing fabric and that technology involves the use of a Fiber Bragg-Grating (FGB) temperature sensor and which is inscribed into an optical fiber by standard ultraviolet laser light fabrication process. Such FBG sensors have been used in medical applications, for example, to obtain a temperature profile of a patient. See In-Fiber Bragg-Grating Temperature Sensor System For Medical Applications, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 15, No. 5 May, 1997, pages 779-785. As noted in that article, one of the advantages of the FBG sensor for temperature sensing is that there is no problem with radio-frequency interference. Another advantageous property of the FBG sensor is that it can be inscribed at any location along an optical fiber and the FBG sensors can also be cascaded in the optical fiber without increasing the diameter of that optical fiber. The spatial resolution can be less than a few millimeters and the maximum length of the FBG sensor distribution can be a few mils. The diameter and length of the fiber sensors are 0.25 mm. and 5.0 mm made from biocompatible silicon dioxide glass material.
It would, therefore, be desirable to have a fabric article, particularly an infant blanket, that would provide warmth and comfort for the infant having efficient, temperature sensors actually integrated into the woven blanket to sense individually located temperatures or the overall temperature of the subject by using the aforementioned technology. It would also be advantageous to have other fabric articles having temperature sensing capability integrated into the fabric article including, but not limited to, articles of clothing and the like.